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vary based on how you buy. Many

1:04

Americans think that people who come to

1:06

this country without legal permission and

1:08

then commit serious crimes should not be

1:10

allowed to stay. But are

1:12

we okay with the government rounding

1:14

people up and sending them directly

1:16

to prison overseas without presenting any

1:18

evidence? From KERA in

1:20

Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris

1:22

Boyd. Upon taking office for

1:25

the second time, President Trump has acted

1:27

quickly on his promise to throw

1:29

out migrants without documentation who pose a

1:31

threat to public safety, including members

1:33

of the Venezuelan gang known as Trende

1:35

Aragua. Trump is using a

1:37

law passed in the 1700s to do

1:39

this lately, the same law

1:41

used to justify the internment of Japanese

1:43

Americans during World War II. This

1:45

time around, no matter where they

1:47

come from, undocumented alleged gang members

1:50

are being rounded up and sent

1:52

directly to a notorious Central American

1:54

prison, no due process required. And

1:56

there is reason to suspect that in

1:58

trying to root out dangerous migrants, immigration

2:01

agents are casting in that wide enough

2:03

to sweep off people who are not violent,

2:05

have never had so much as a

2:07

jaywalking ticket in this country. Some

2:09

people may be arrested and sent

2:11

to that prison simply because they have

2:13

Tattoos. Jonathan Blitzer is a staff

2:15

writer at The New Yorker, which published

2:17

his article, The Makeup Artist, Donald

2:19

Trump Deported Under the Alien Enemies Act.

2:21

Jonathan, welcome to think. Thanks

2:24

for having me. So a major

2:26

focus of deportation raids in these early

2:28

months of the second Trump administration

2:30

has been on rounding up Venezuelan nationals.

2:32

And more than three quarters of

2:34

a million Venezuelans are believed to have

2:36

come to the US during the

2:38

Biden presidency, right? What reasons did people

2:41

have for leaving? Well,

2:43

Venezuela over the last decade or

2:45

so has essentially collapsed. I

2:47

mean, an authoritarian regime rules the

2:49

country. The leader of

2:51

the country, Nicolas Maduro, lost, it

2:54

seemed, by an overwhelming margin,

2:56

the election this past summer,

2:58

but remains in power because

3:00

he... the country really in

3:02

every respect. The economy has

3:04

cratered. And it's really caused

3:06

a major humanitarian emergency that's

3:08

played out over the last

3:10

several years. And so the

3:12

lion's share of people from Venezuela who have

3:14

showed up in the United

3:16

States recently came to the United

3:18

States during the Biden administration

3:20

using legal pathways created by the

3:22

US government, which now the

3:25

Trump administration is essentially ruling out

3:27

and declaring null and void

3:29

and going after everyone. President

3:31

Trump is worried about an influx

3:33

of criminals, specifically members of this

3:35

international crime syndicate known as Tren

3:37

De Arragua. What kinds of activity

3:39

have been attributed to Tren De

3:41

Arragua? Tren De

3:44

Arragua was a relatively

3:46

new and not very well

3:48

understood gang that began

3:50

in a prison in Venezuela.

3:54

essentially over the last several years, as

3:56

more and more of the Venezuelan

3:58

population has fled the country and has

4:00

moved to neighboring countries like Colombia,

4:02

like Chile, has kind

4:04

of expanded its tentacles

4:07

into those countries. But primarily,

4:09

Trinidad Agua has targeted Venezuelan

4:11

migrants for extortion, for

4:14

kidnapping. And so,

4:16

you know, by and large, the gang

4:18

itself, its most notorious kind of

4:20

criminal acts have targeted the very people

4:22

who the Trump administration is claiming

4:24

belong to the gang, which is to

4:26

say, Venezuelans who are desperate, who

4:28

are fleeing for their lives, and who

4:30

are traveling, if not to the

4:32

United States, then to neighboring countries. Any

4:35

estimates of how large this

4:37

organization is, like how many official

4:39

members there are? I've

4:43

not seen a reliable estimate, and

4:45

it should be said that, you

4:47

know, by comparison to groups that

4:49

are better known now to the American

4:51

public, for instance, a gang like

4:53

MS -13, which actually originated the United

4:55

States, but really expanded in Central America.

4:58

There isn't an obvious set of

5:00

identifying markers that attach themselves to

5:02

members of this gang. And so,

5:04

you know, one assumption is that

5:06

during that Agua. which is this

5:08

Venezuelan gang, will operate in some

5:11

of the same ways that a

5:13

gang like MS -13 does, which is

5:15

to say that members will have

5:17

tattoos, will defend specific territory, have

5:20

a series of kind

5:22

of hierarchical bosses or

5:24

cliques that they answer

5:26

to or participate in.

5:29

the Venezuelan gang doesn't operate really at

5:31

all like that. And so it's

5:33

one of the many problems with how

5:35

the US administration is dealing with

5:37

the existence of this gang is to

5:40

basically act as though this gang

5:42

fits the same profile that past gangs

5:44

have when very clearly it doesn't.

5:46

And any expert will tell you as

5:48

much. So let's talk about the

5:50

individual who is the primary subject of

5:53

this article. Who is André Jose

5:55

Hernandez -Roberto? André is

5:57

a gay makeup artist in his

5:59

early 30s who comes from a

6:01

small town in Venezuela called Capacho

6:03

and he came to the United

6:05

States in the summer of 2024

6:07

seeking asylum. The reason

6:09

specifically why he was seeking asylum was

6:11

that he had worked for a

6:13

year in Caracas at a state -run

6:16

television channel where he did makeup for

6:18

people who appeared on screen and

6:20

because he was gay and because he

6:22

was sort of known to be

6:24

skeptical of the ruling regime. He wasn't

6:26

terribly political, but in a country

6:28

like Venezuela, with the authoritarian regime in

6:30

power, all it takes for

6:33

you to fall under suspicion by the

6:35

government and its loyalists is for you

6:37

to be, let's say, less than enthusiastic

6:39

about the party in power. And

6:41

so he was frequently targeted in

6:43

Caracas at work. slapped

6:45

and abused by bosses in front of

6:47

his coworkers. And

6:49

at night, after he would leave the

6:51

office and go to his apartment,

6:53

he would be followed by armed vigilantes

6:56

who are associated with the government,

6:58

all of whom were trying to intimidate

7:00

and menace him because of his

7:02

political views. And so in the summer

7:04

of 2024, he arrives at the

7:06

US border having made an appointment using

7:08

a government app created by the

7:10

Biden administration so that he could have

7:12

his asylum claim heard when he

7:14

taken into custody for the first of

7:16

the series of interviews. One

7:19

of the things that border agents

7:21

notice is that he has several

7:23

tattoos and two of them immediately

7:25

become cause for suspicion by US

7:27

border authorities. The two tattoos in

7:29

question are crowns that

7:31

appear on each of his wrists and next

7:33

to each crown is the word mom

7:35

on one wrist and on the other wrist

7:37

dad. Now anyone from

7:40

this town in Capaccio could explain

7:42

what the significance of these

7:44

crowns are. The crowns are

7:46

actually a direct reference to a

7:48

religious festival, the celebration of Three

7:50

Kings Day, which is huge in

7:52

the town of Capaccio and which

7:54

Andre himself has played a very

7:56

large role in celebrating. There's an

7:58

enormous street festival and a theatrical

8:00

production. It's known all across the

8:02

country. And André

8:05

himself played a really central

8:07

role in designing costumes, helping

8:09

with choreography. There are

8:11

photos online. Very easy

8:13

to find. YouTube clips of him

8:15

participating in this festival. Clips of

8:17

him and others wearing crowns, which

8:19

is part of the iconography of

8:21

this religious holiday. U

8:23

.S. border authorities felt that these tattoos

8:26

somehow signified that he might have

8:28

a criminal association with his Tren Der

8:30

Agua gang, and as a result

8:32

kept him in custody for several months

8:34

while he pursued his asylum claims. As

8:37

he starts to set that process

8:39

in motion, as he starts to have

8:41

the first of various interviews to

8:43

prove that in fact he has a

8:45

credible fear of being persecuted in

8:48

his own country, He remains in custody

8:50

during that time. He passes each

8:52

of these hearings and so when you

8:54

go through his government file It

8:56

becomes very clear that you know that

8:58

the agents who interviewed him found

9:01

that he had a very credible case

9:03

for seeking asylum But he was

9:05

waiting to appear before a judge when

9:07

in early March the Trump administration

9:09

transferred him without warning him or his

9:11

lawyer To Texas where he spent

9:13

basically a week after which

9:16

he was deported to El

9:18

Salvador to this maximum security prison

9:20

that's reserved for hardened criminals

9:22

and has basically been held there

9:24

in Communicado ever since. In

9:27

this country, Jonathan, many, many people

9:29

have tattoos and for the most part,

9:31

we assume they have chosen them

9:33

for personal reasons. I do have to

9:35

ask, are tattoos somehow different in

9:37

Venezuela or any part of Latin America?

9:39

Do they, you know, is there

9:41

a country in Latin America where tattoo

9:43

means criminal? It's a

9:45

good question. I

9:48

think the short answer is

9:50

no, tattoos do not correlate with

9:52

criminality. They do not indicate

9:54

any kind of criminal association. One

9:57

of the reasons why American

9:59

authorities assume that these tattoos are

10:01

suggestive has to do with, well,

10:03

all sorts of things, some of

10:05

which involve American inner city policing

10:07

going back decades, but specifically

10:09

in the case of this gang,

10:12

MS -13, which has really become. so

10:14

notorious in the United States, particularly during

10:16

the first Trump administration, even

10:18

though this gang has existed for many, many years

10:20

and began on US soil. One

10:22

of the things that was most

10:24

striking about some of the hardened

10:26

gang members of MS -13, this

10:28

is going back a decade plus,

10:31

is that they would often be

10:33

thoroughly covered in tattoos, face tattoos,

10:35

arms, necks, and oftentimes those tattoos

10:37

would actually have the letters MS -13

10:39

on them, which is to say,

10:41

you know, totally unambiguous announcements of

10:43

their criminal association. But

10:45

those images, I think, were bracing

10:47

to people and have become this

10:49

kind of symbol of immigrant crime,

10:51

which is a specter that the

10:53

current administration keeps trying to scare

10:55

up, even though none of the

10:57

data or facts support it. And

10:59

so when you talk to Venezuelan

11:01

experts, I'm talking about criminologists, journalists

11:03

who have written extensively Antoine de

11:05

Raguay, the gang in question, people

11:08

who have spent time in

11:10

Venezuelan prisons and so on, all

11:13

of them say that really in

11:15

no case do tattoos have anything at

11:17

all to do with these gangs,

11:19

that members of the gangs don't use

11:21

tattoos to identify themselves. There

11:24

isn't any kind of standard set of

11:26

images that have to appear in

11:28

tattoos to typify gang membership, nothing of

11:30

the sort. And as you

11:32

point out, huge numbers of people all

11:34

I mean in the United States

11:36

for one thing but all across Latin

11:38

America and especially in South America

11:40

have tattoos and more than anything else

11:43

what experts will tell you is

11:45

that those tattoos tend to say more

11:47

about someone's age kind of what

11:49

socioeconomic status they are some of their

11:51

personal kind of sense of style

11:53

or proclivities but but nothing at all

11:55

like what US authorities are claiming

11:58

and when you look through the government

12:00

files where they have compiled images

12:02

of, you know, so -called suspicious tattoos. It's

12:05

clear that they've done so through

12:07

what they describe as open source reporting,

12:09

which is, I think, a fancy

12:12

way of saying, you know, Googling around.

12:14

Yeah, anecdotes extrapolating based on, you

12:16

know, kind of happenstance arrests. And

12:19

the images that they show of

12:21

tattoos that they think correlate with gang

12:23

membership are things that are incredibly

12:25

generic. crowns, a phrase from

12:28

a famous Puerto Rican rapper, a

12:30

star. In one instance,

12:32

there was actually the Michael

12:34

Jordan Nike Jumpman logo was used

12:36

as some sort of definitive

12:38

proof that someone had a gang

12:40

association. So it's an incredibly

12:42

shoddy and frankly scary way to

12:45

accuse someone of criminality because

12:47

it is completely baseless. And you

12:49

discovered it's not just that

12:51

immigration officials are doing this, Googling

12:53

on their own. There's training

12:55

there being provided telling them to

12:57

look for these tattoos. You

13:00

know, I think it's a good

13:02

question to try to understand kind

13:04

of how this became the M

13:06

.O. for US border authorities. My

13:09

hunch, just having looked

13:11

at some government files, is

13:13

that the border authorities

13:15

have a kind of profile

13:17

that they assume all gangs fit.

13:20

And that profile is basically that

13:22

of MS -13 maybe 15 years

13:24

ago. And one of the interesting

13:26

things about the history of MS -13

13:28

as it happens is that around

13:30

2015, for obvious reasons, some

13:32

high -ranking gang members basically said to

13:34

their members, you know, we should

13:36

stop covering ourselves in tattoos because it

13:38

immediately identifies us as belonging to

13:40

this gang. And so there was even

13:42

a shift many years ago in

13:45

how gangs like MS -13 started to

13:47

use tattoos. This is a real throwback

13:49

to a time when those kinds

13:51

of tattoos were somehow indicative of something

13:53

else. But as far

13:55

as I can tell, it's

13:57

not a reliable indicator at

14:00

all in in Venezuela especially.

14:03

And so it's not entirely clear

14:05

to me why the government

14:07

continues to cling to this particular

14:09

set of examples as evidence,

14:11

other than that this is a

14:13

bad faith effort by the

14:15

government to brand recently arrived immigrants

14:18

as criminals and to have

14:20

freer reign and latitude in what

14:22

the US government can do

14:24

with them. When Andre

14:26

was in this US immigration holding facility,

14:28

he was able to talk with his

14:30

parents. And at least in that place,

14:32

he said he was being treated all

14:35

right. Is that correct? Yes.

14:37

He had an opportunity to

14:39

call his mother essentially once every

14:41

few days. The calls would

14:43

last about a minute. And he

14:45

would say to her during

14:47

these calls, look, I physically am

14:49

OK. Please don't worry. terrible

14:52

about the situation is, we're just

14:54

being held here indefinitely with no

14:56

clear end in sight. Border authorities

14:58

confronted him and asked him directly,

15:01

are you a member of the

15:03

Trinidad Agua Gang? And he

15:05

said no, and they asked him

15:07

again. And he said no,

15:09

at which point the agent filling

15:11

out his file labels him

15:14

as quote unquote, uncooperative, because the

15:16

agents in question had this

15:18

kind of pre Baked idea in

15:20

their heads that he somehow

15:22

had to have had a criminal

15:24

affiliation and if he's denying

15:26

it he must be with he

15:28

must be withholding something Jonathan

15:30

we should talk about this The

15:32

alien enemies act a president

15:34

doesn't need it to summarily deport

15:36

undocumented immigrants. Is that correct? I'm

15:39

glad you make the point

15:41

because the president has pretty wide

15:43

latitude as is without invoking

15:45

an act like this to deport

15:48

people to really manage all

15:50

sorts of the country's immigration

15:52

enforcement regime. What's so radical

15:55

about what the current administration

15:57

is doing is it's claiming

15:59

that mass migration, which is

16:01

just a global fact of

16:03

life, somehow constitutes, and

16:06

this is a direct quote, a kind

16:08

of invasion. And this language has

16:10

been all over U .S. government documents

16:12

and statements. Certainly it was repeated ad

16:14

nauseam on the campaign trail, but

16:16

most significantly when the president was sworn

16:18

in in January, he

16:20

signed a series of executive

16:22

orders on immigration issues. And

16:25

one of them basically codified

16:27

the idea that mass migration

16:29

equaled a kind of invasion

16:31

and that as a result, some

16:34

of the people from a

16:36

country like Venezuela, because these Venezuelan

16:38

gangs like Trinidad Agua were

16:40

branded by this administration as foreign

16:42

terrorist organizations could basically be

16:44

prosecuted as hostile foreign agents or

16:47

terrorists on U .S. soil. And

16:49

so, you know, we have this

16:51

very rare and shocking instance where a

16:54

law from 1798 that has been

16:56

invoked three times in American history, always

16:58

during wartime, is now being invoked

17:00

during a time of peace at a

17:02

time it should be pointed out.

17:04

when the number of people arriving at

17:06

the southern border are at historic

17:08

lows, just as a way

17:10

of further insulating the federal government

17:12

from any sort of oversight. And

17:14

so that's what this is really

17:16

about, is it's about the current

17:18

administration on the one hand claiming

17:20

that, you know, immigrants should be

17:22

a source of suspicion because they

17:24

have some sort of criminal association,

17:26

but on the other, it's also

17:28

an opportunity for this administration to

17:30

basically do whatever it wants and

17:32

to say, well, no courts really

17:34

have the legal or legitimate authority

17:36

to question us because the president

17:38

isn't just using the immigration statutes

17:40

here. He is actually using this

17:43

old radical law in conjunction with

17:45

constitutional authorities he's ever getting into

17:47

himself to act unilaterally and to

17:49

do it in such a way

17:51

that people don't have really any

17:53

basic due process rights to contest

17:55

the accusations being leveled against them

17:57

by the government. What is the

17:59

history of the use of the

18:01

alien enemies act down through American

18:03

history? I

18:05

am not, you know, a

18:08

legal expert, but what's so striking

18:10

and stark about the history

18:12

of it is just how infrequently

18:14

it's been used. So it

18:16

was used during the war of

18:18

1812 when the U .S. was

18:20

at war with England to

18:22

detain British who were suspected of

18:24

being hostile to the United States, and

18:27

then it was invoked during the First

18:29

and Second World Wars as a way

18:31

of detaining and deporting Germans, Japanese,

18:34

people who were living in the

18:36

United States, who the government at the

18:38

time had questions about their loyalty

18:40

because they were citizens of a foreign

18:42

country and foreign countries that were

18:45

then at war with the United States.

18:47

And I don't think it's an

18:49

exaggeration to say that all of these

18:51

instances in US history, particularly in

18:53

the Second World War with the Japanese

18:55

internment and so on, are considered

18:57

some of the low points in American

19:00

history. But this administration is actually

19:02

striving to recreate exactly those sorts of

19:04

moments. And in fact, is going

19:06

even farther than the US government has

19:08

gone in the past during wartime

19:10

when administrations have invoked the Alien Enemies

19:13

Act. At one point, an appellate

19:15

court judge in response to the Trump

19:17

administration's summary deportation of hundreds of

19:19

Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Alien

19:21

Enemies Act, said essentially even Nazis

19:23

had a greater set of basic due

19:25

process rights than these Venezuelan men,

19:28

because these men were deported without even

19:30

knowing in some cases the charges

19:32

against them. They weren't even allowed to

19:34

contest those charges. Their lawyers were

19:36

kept in the dark. Just because the

19:38

administration is invoking the Alien Enemies

19:40

Act doesn't mean, according to this judge

19:43

and according to many jurists, doesn't

19:45

just mean that the administration gets to

19:47

suspend due process entirely. But that's

19:49

certainly how the current administration is proceeding.

19:51

Can you explain what the government

19:53

means when it alleges that Iraq in

19:56

particular is carrying out what it

19:58

calls irregular warfare in this country? Well,

20:01

what you're describing is a

20:03

real kind of acrobatics in

20:05

how the government is trying

20:07

to classify Venezuelan migrants as

20:09

being some sort of hostile

20:12

foreign presence in the United

20:14

States. So, you know, to

20:16

begin with, as we discussed earlier, the

20:18

alien enemies act has only ever

20:20

been invoked during times of war as

20:22

you know we're not in a

20:24

time of war and so the first

20:26

sort of stipulation or preconception that's

20:28

baked into this administration's use of the

20:31

Alien Enemies Act is to say,

20:33

well, we are effectively at war. And

20:35

we are effectively at war because

20:37

during the Biden administration, so many people

20:39

came to the United States. So

20:41

that's the first premise. And that's obviously

20:43

an extremely dubious premise. But the

20:45

second is for the administration to classify

20:47

this group, Threne de Raguas, as

20:49

a foreign terrorist organization. That's not unprecedented.

20:52

The US government the U .S. government

20:54

in the past has done that with

20:56

foreign organizations like MS -13. But

20:59

in this case, the specific

21:01

allegation the administration is trying to

21:03

trump up is to somehow

21:05

communicate that or to somehow suggest

21:07

that this train that I

21:09

will gang is working in conjunction

21:11

with the dictator of Venezuela

21:13

to somehow infiltrate the United States

21:16

through mass migration, whereby

21:18

members of Tranguerragua who are mixed

21:21

in among other Venezuelan migrants are

21:23

entering the country and are in

21:25

some way committing crimes, sewing, discord,

21:27

et cetera. It is

21:29

a mouthful because

21:31

it is extremely attenuated

21:33

and fundamentally unserious. And

21:36

I think when it does

21:38

get scrutinized by judges, And

21:41

we're kind of in this slow process

21:43

where different courts will actually hear out the

21:45

merits of how the Trump administration has

21:47

invoked the Alien Enemies Act. I think you're

21:49

going to find a great deal of

21:51

skepticism from judges, whatever their political bent, because

21:54

the administration has gone to

21:56

great lengths to try to trump

21:58

up these circumstances to give

22:00

the president this kind of unprecedented

22:02

latitude in prosecuting its war

22:04

on immigrants. So something that

22:06

I think deserves drawing a line under

22:09

is that it's not just that

22:11

immigrants are being sent randomly to El

22:13

Salvador wherever they came from Andre

22:15

was not sent back home to Venezuela

22:17

but to another country entirely that

22:19

was El Salvador and he wasn't just

22:21

released in El Salvador, right? He

22:23

was sent directly to prison with no

22:26

trial That's

22:28

right. And there's a specific reason why

22:30

it's El Salvador, and there's a

22:32

specific reason why his fate in El

22:34

Salvador is so alarming. And

22:36

that is, the president of

22:38

El Salvador is a man named

22:40

Najib Bukele, who has made

22:42

a name for himself over the

22:44

last several years by waging

22:46

a kind of war on the

22:49

Salvadoran gangs. A

22:51

big part of what he's

22:53

done is that he has declared

22:55

a state of exception in

22:57

El Salvador and suspended parts of

22:59

the Salvadoran constitution, all in

23:02

the name of defending public safety

23:04

and national security. It

23:06

should be said that he declared this

23:08

state of exception back in March of

23:10

2022. And the logic of it,

23:12

as it was introduced at the time in El Salvador was, the

23:15

country's legislature, which is dominated

23:17

by Bukele's party and by

23:19

people loyal to his agenda,

23:21

would have to renew that

23:23

declaration every month. It has

23:25

now been three years since

23:27

that declaration. That declaration has

23:29

been renewed every month since.

23:32

And Bukele has jailed over 80 ,000

23:34

people in El Salvador. This is

23:36

a country of six million people.

23:38

And one of the places where

23:40

he's been holding Alleged

23:43

criminals and a lot of these

23:45

people have not faced serious charges. They're

23:47

not given a chance to defend

23:49

themselves I know from just personal experience

23:51

for one thing I've spent some time

23:53

on the ground in El Salvador reporting

23:55

on individual cases where people who had

23:57

committed no crimes were simply accused of

23:59

belonging to a gang and thrown

24:01

into prison and basically left there to

24:03

languish But this has been widely documented

24:06

widely reported on and so at a

24:08

certain point the Salvadoran government built a

24:10

new prison because it was housing so

24:12

many people that it needed more

24:14

space. And this prison, which is

24:16

called the Center for the Confinement of

24:18

Terrorism, is essentially where the US government

24:20

is now sending people apprehended on US

24:22

soil. And so a big part of

24:24

Bukele's agenda in El Salvador, and something

24:26

that has gotten him a lot of

24:28

notoriety, but also a lot of popularity

24:30

in his own home country and in

24:32

other countries that have dealt with crime

24:34

in major ways, is to basically be

24:36

a strong man, authoritarian. And

24:39

so he's only too eager. to

24:41

prove his loyalty to Trump and to

24:43

prove his utility to Trump. This

24:45

is something he did even during Trump's first

24:47

term, kind of doing whatever he has to take,

24:50

whatever it takes to align himself

24:52

with Trump and to get some of

24:54

the benefits that follow. And

24:56

so just the two of them met.

24:58

in the White House. And

25:00

Bukele said some absolutely astonishing things because

25:02

he's not about to back down

25:04

and the Trump administration, in a way,

25:06

as a kind of public relations

25:08

matter, is kind of joining forces with

25:10

Bukele, who's been very, very successful

25:12

in using the crime issue to further

25:15

consolidate his power in the country. So,

25:18

I mean, what's in it

25:20

for El Salvador to take these

25:22

allegedly very dangerous criminals? A

25:25

few things. The first and

25:27

most obvious is money.

25:29

The US government is paying

25:31

El Salvador $6 million

25:34

annually for the use of

25:36

its prison facilities. And

25:38

so that's the first thing. So if Bukele

25:40

wants to continue, and he has said this

25:42

explicitly, this is not my interpretation, if

25:45

Bukele wants to continue to

25:47

build these prisons and to make

25:49

a show of his crackdown

25:51

on crime of all sorts, he

25:54

needs this money to continue. to

25:56

mount that production. So that's the

25:58

first thing. And the second

26:00

thing is he is a, I

26:02

don't think it's terribly controversial to

26:04

say, a corrupt authoritarian

26:06

leader who wants to

26:09

be in the good

26:11

graces of the US

26:13

administration. And he

26:15

gets tremendous support.

26:17

diplomatically, politically, with the

26:19

US at his back. This is

26:22

someone who has had a series of

26:24

ongoing spats, for example, with the International

26:26

Monetary Fund. Some of your

26:28

listeners may know of Bukele primarily

26:30

because he declared Bitcoin, the national currency,

26:32

several years ago. That's

26:34

actually kind of fizzled since then. But

26:37

he has always adopted some

26:39

of these, you know, more curious

26:41

pet projects in part to

26:43

boost his brand and to increase

26:45

his visibility. But it's put

26:47

him on a collision course with establishment

26:49

forces, whether it's the IMF, whether it's

26:51

traditional congressional Republicans who at this point

26:53

now are so thoroughly cowed by Trump

26:55

that they're not about to stick their

26:57

necks out and criticize someone like Bukele.

26:59

But it is sort of, I guess,

27:01

smart for him politically to try to

27:03

align himself with Trump to fend off

27:05

any potential criticism, investigation,

27:07

sanctions from the US, and

27:10

certainly it eases his dealings with

27:12

international bodies like the IMF to

27:14

have the US at his back.

27:16

So there are all kinds of things. During the first

27:19

Trump term, one of the

27:21

things that Bukele did was capitalize

27:23

on the fact that Trump was

27:25

so obsessed with the issue of

27:27

immigration that he basically promised to

27:29

do whatever Trump wanted, and what

27:31

he wanted in exchange, Bukele at

27:34

the time. was to have the

27:36

U .S. downgrade a status that

27:38

the State Department assigns to foreign

27:40

countries that ranks them by how

27:42

dangerous it may be for American

27:44

tourists to visit. And so

27:46

during the first term, one of the

27:48

things that the Bukele administration was

27:50

doing was lobbying the Trump administration to

27:53

have the State Department classify El

27:55

Salvador as being a safer country to

27:57

help promote tourism, to help make

27:59

it more inviting to investors and so

28:01

on. So that was the calculus

28:03

that he was playing in the first

28:05

term. Now, who even

28:07

knows what broader designs he has?

28:09

But it certainly helps him to

28:11

be able to appear in the

28:13

White House shaking hands, smiling with

28:15

Donald Trump. It gives him even

28:18

more power in his own country.

28:20

It makes it harder for national

28:22

opposition figures to challenge or contest

28:24

him. So there are all

28:26

kinds of benefits in it for him.

28:28

What's unclear is what sorts of actual

28:30

meaningful benefits there could ever conceivably be

28:32

for the United States, because it's basically

28:35

leading the current administration directly into a

28:37

constitutional crisis. Jonathan, what

28:39

do we know about conditions

28:41

for inmates in this prison

28:43

that Bukele set up for

28:45

Americans accused of criminal activity

28:47

and having been undocumented migrants? It's

28:51

known this facility

28:53

for just being an

28:55

incredibly harsh. brutal

28:58

place. But we know

29:00

very, very little about what goes on

29:02

inside this facility because the Salvadoran government

29:04

restricts and controls access. And so the

29:06

people who are there, the Venezuelans, for

29:08

instance, who have been deported there, haven't

29:10

been able to speak to their lawyers.

29:12

They haven't been able to speak to

29:14

their families. You know,

29:16

someone asked me, just a reader of

29:18

this story that you and I

29:20

have been discussing, asked me,

29:22

you know, what is the actual charge

29:25

against someone like Andre? Like, what

29:27

is the sentence that he's serving? You

29:29

know, how long is he meant

29:31

to stay in prison? And these are

29:33

all very basic questions for which

29:35

at this point there are no answers,

29:38

which gives you a sense of

29:40

just how scary of a place it

29:42

is, where people are being held

29:44

in Communicato indefinitely without really any prospect

29:46

of any oversight or intervention of

29:48

any sort. All

29:50

right. That

29:53

is very concerning. What

29:55

kind of access has Andri

29:57

had the subject of your

29:59

story to legal representation since

30:02

he was moved to El

30:04

Salvador? Well,

30:06

Andri is in a tough spot, as

30:08

all of these Venezuelans are, in that he's

30:10

not been able to speak to his

30:12

lawyers since he's been sent to El Salvador.

30:14

He had a team of

30:16

lawyers representing him back when he

30:18

was in detention in San Diego. And

30:21

the way his lawyer from

30:23

San Diego found out that

30:25

he essentially had been sent,

30:28

you know, in the middle of the

30:30

night to El Salvador was that

30:32

at the regularly scheduled immigration hearings that

30:34

Andre was meant to have in

30:36

front of a US immigration judge, he

30:38

just didn't show. And so

30:40

this is the level of

30:42

kind of stealth. and

30:44

an extra legal sleight of

30:46

hand that the current administration is

30:49

using. In Andre's

30:51

case, and this has been true in

30:53

the hearings of other people, the

30:55

immigration judge, in his case,

30:57

asked the government, where is

30:59

Andre? We're here. We have a scheduled hearing. He's

31:02

supposed to bring his claim to us. I'm the

31:04

judge. I'm the one who's supposed to decide whether

31:06

or not his claim has merit. If he's going

31:08

to be deported, I'm the one who has to

31:10

issue that order. He can't be deported in the

31:12

absence of that order. And at that

31:14

point, the government lawyer had said to this

31:16

immigration judge, he's not

31:18

here. He's actually in El

31:20

Salvador. And the judge says, well,

31:22

how could he be removed if I didn't

31:25

issue an order? And the US government lawyer

31:27

says, I don't know. And

31:29

that's basically where we are. And

31:31

so there are lawyers representing these Venezuelan

31:33

men who are engaged in an

31:35

incredibly righteous but complex legal battle right

31:37

now to just try to keep

31:40

these cases open in immigration court. Because

31:42

one of the things that the

31:44

Trump administration is trying to do is

31:46

it's trying to get immigration judges

31:48

to close these cases, which would effectively

31:50

mean that these people have been

31:52

disappeared to El Salvador. Because once these

31:55

cases close, the US

31:57

government has no more

31:59

stake in their whereabouts.

32:02

There's no one else officially asking

32:04

about their status. And

32:06

so this is something that's been happening

32:08

behind the scenes is the US

32:10

government in these immigration proceedings is trying

32:12

its best to hide the ball

32:14

in order to get judges to close

32:17

these cases, to wrap them up.

32:19

In some cases, people have been removed

32:21

and the US government has gone

32:23

before an immigration judge and said, listen,

32:25

the person's already been deported. Can't

32:27

you just issue a removal order now?

32:29

He's already gone. I mean, that's

32:31

the level of deception. Jonathan,

32:35

who? I mean, it's not just you, you

32:37

know, this do -gooder journalist who is objecting to

32:39

this. There has been a

32:42

federal judge, James Bosberg, who

32:44

issued a restraining order to temporarily

32:46

block these kinds of deportations. What

32:48

happened with those two plain loads filled with

32:50

migrants who had been held in Texas and

32:52

then were shipped off to El Salvador? Well,

32:55

this is where the story

32:58

gets surreal. In

33:00

case it wasn't depressing enough, this is where it

33:02

really takes a turn. Generally,

33:04

the way this works is when

33:07

there is a lawsuit against the government

33:09

and a judge decides that he

33:11

or she is going to impose what's

33:13

called a temporary restraining order to

33:15

block a particular policy while the issue

33:17

gets resolved in the courts, the

33:19

federal government abides by that

33:21

judge's order. And that is not

33:23

what happened in this case.

33:25

And so on March 14th, the

33:27

president in secret signed this

33:29

proclamation, authorizing the government to

33:31

use the Alien Enemies Act to

33:34

go after Venezuelans suspected of belonging

33:36

to Tren de Agua. That happens

33:38

on March 14th. Later that night, the

33:40

ACLU, the American Civil Liberties

33:43

Union, files a lawsuit. It

33:45

had been tipped off earlier that this

33:47

was coming. And so it was prepared.

33:49

It files this lawsuit on

33:51

behalf of several plaintiffs

33:53

who were Venezuelan, who were

33:55

basically in detention, immigration

33:58

detention, who had pending immigration cases

34:00

before a judge, and who had

34:02

all been mysteriously transferred to South

34:04

Texas. And this is the fact

34:06

pattern that people, lawyers involved in

34:08

these cases were starting to recognize

34:10

was happening. You basically had Venezuelans

34:12

who were held in custody somewhere

34:14

else in the United States. who

34:16

in the first week of March

34:18

began to get flown to South

34:20

Texas from where they would eventually

34:22

be deported to El Salvador. And

34:24

so the ACLU intervenes on the

34:26

night of March 14th, the early,

34:28

early morning of March 15th, to

34:30

basically say, you know, these five

34:32

plaintiffs were representing need to be

34:34

protected against their summary deportation to

34:36

El Salvador under the Alien Enemies

34:38

Act. The judge in this

34:40

case, Postburg, in Washington, DC, a federal

34:42

judge, Issues a temporary restraining

34:44

order on behalf of these plaintiffs and

34:46

then over the course of the day

34:49

goes on to issue a wider temporary

34:51

restraining order for an entire the entire

34:53

class of potential plaintiffs and so one

34:55

of the things the ACLU does is

34:57

it takes these you know this small

34:59

group of plaintiffs to start with and

35:01

then based on the characteristics in that

35:03

group, it says, look, we have reason

35:05

to be concerned that the U .S. government

35:07

is doing this with a whole host

35:10

of other people who fit some of

35:12

this general description. And so

35:14

Boasberg is persuaded by the fact

35:16

that this is a real concern.

35:18

And so he issues in the

35:20

late afternoon of March 15th, an

35:22

order in which he unequivocally says

35:25

to the U .S. government, you

35:27

have to stop the deportation of

35:29

these people if any flights have left,

35:32

you need to turn them around.

35:34

One of the reasons he was up against

35:36

a wall on this was it became clear

35:38

over the course of the day of March

35:41

15th. The U .S. government was being a little

35:43

bit dodgy about where these planes actually were.

35:45

So the government lawyers in front of Judge

35:47

Bosberg in Washington, D .C. are saying, well,

35:49

we don't really know what's going on with

35:51

any of these plans. Whereas the

35:53

ACLU was saying, you know, we have

35:55

reason to believe that people have already

35:57

been loaded onto some of these plans

35:59

as we speak. And in fact, at

36:01

a certain point in its very dramatic

36:03

moment in a hearing on March 15th,

36:05

around, you know, five, 20 or so, the

36:08

judge says to the US government lawyers,

36:10

listen, you need to tell

36:12

me, I'm going to adjourn the court

36:14

for 40 minutes. you need to come

36:16

back with actual information about who's on

36:18

these planes, where these planes are. I

36:20

need some clarity on this. They

36:22

reconvened at six o 'clock. By

36:24

then, two planes had already

36:26

left the United States in route

36:28

to Honduras. And over

36:31

the course of the next two hours,

36:33

even though the judge went on to

36:35

say explicitly that you can't fly anyone

36:37

to El Salvador under the terms of

36:39

these orders, you have to turn them

36:41

around, the US government appears to have

36:43

gone ahead. in direct contravention of that

36:45

judge's order. And in the end, there

36:47

were three planes that arrived in El

36:50

Salvador much later that night. And the

36:52

next morning, when it was widely reported

36:54

that these planes may have been flown

36:56

to El Salvador in direct violation of

36:58

the judge's order, the president of

37:00

El Salvador, Najib Bukele, went on X

37:02

and said, oopsie, and had

37:04

a little winking emoji with a link

37:07

to a story in the New

37:09

York Post of all places about this

37:11

judge's order, which is to say,

37:13

you know, there was a very clear

37:15

sense of, okay, well, we're playing

37:17

chicken with a federal judge and we

37:19

don't mind so much that we

37:22

have directly disregarded his order. And that

37:24

tweet by Najib Bukele got retweeted

37:26

by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.

37:29

And so the US government now has really,

37:31

the Trump administration, I should say specifically,

37:33

has doubled down on the fact that it

37:35

can do what it wants and that

37:37

it doesn't matter if a federal judge has

37:39

issued an order telling them that it

37:41

can't. So I just want

37:43

to make sure that I'm following it. Essentially,

37:45

this judge said, don't do this thing

37:47

at least temporarily. The

37:49

executive branch responded by saying,

37:52

effectively, who's going to make

37:54

me do it or not do it? And

37:56

the answer is, we don't know, right? We

37:58

don't know whether Boseberg or any other federal

38:00

judge has the authority to, like, order a

38:02

plane returned. I

38:04

mean, this is one of

38:07

the scarier things to me anyway

38:09

about the actual power

38:11

of the courts here. I mean, if

38:13

the executive is going to openly

38:15

disregard their orders, what

38:17

actual power do the courts have,

38:19

you know, aside from holding individual lawyers

38:22

in contempt and so on, to

38:24

go toe to toe with the Trump

38:26

administration? And what we've seen in

38:28

the days since is that the Trump

38:30

administration has only dug in its

38:32

heels. And so, you know, Boseberg's order

38:35

gets challenged by the Trump administration. well

38:38

after the fact that the planes have

38:40

already touched down in El Salvador. These

38:42

guys are now in the Salvadoran prison,

38:44

but the Trump administration contests the judge's order,

38:46

goes up the chain to another appellate

38:48

court. Another appellate court sides with Judge

38:51

Boesberg, at which point the Trump administration appeals

38:53

that ruling to the Supreme Court. And

38:55

then last week, the Supreme Court does

38:57

a very strange and, to my mind, dispiriting

38:59

thing. It says first

39:01

that the ACLU and lawyers representing

39:03

these Venezuelans had made a

39:06

mistake in bringing their cases to

39:08

a federal judge in Washington,

39:10

DC, rather than to a judge

39:12

in Texas. Because technically,

39:14

they had been in Texas

39:16

immediately before being deported. And

39:18

so the Supreme Court, in an

39:21

unsigned opinion by a 5 -4 majority,

39:23

said essentially that in response to

39:25

this whole thing that has just played

39:27

it out. an instance where the

39:29

Trump administration has disregarded a federal

39:31

judge's order, where Donald Trump has directly

39:33

called out that judge by name,

39:35

by the way, and called for

39:37

that judge's impeachment. The Supreme

39:40

Court kind of weighs in with this

39:42

very narrow, technocratic answer that doesn't seem to

39:44

address any of the practical realities. What

39:46

does it mean now? for these men to

39:48

bring a claim to a judge in

39:50

Texas when they've already been deported to El

39:52

Salvador. The Supreme Court

39:54

doesn't offer any guidance on that, but

39:56

one thing that's striking in what the

39:58

Supreme Court has done in this case

40:00

is in its ruling, in that five

40:02

to four ruling, it does make very,

40:04

very explicit the fact that the Trump

40:07

administration, even if it were to use

40:09

the Alien Enemies Act, can't do so

40:11

in a way that would deny people

40:13

basic due process rights, that people Anyone

40:15

accused of any crime by the by

40:17

the government need to have some ability

40:19

to hear the charges against them and

40:21

to mount even a modest defense Now

40:23

what that means for the Trump administration?

40:25

Very unclear. They don't appear at all

40:27

concerned or constrained by the Supreme Court

40:29

and while all this is playing out.

40:32

It should be said there is another

40:34

drama in which the Supreme Court has

40:36

weighed in and ordered the Trump administration

40:38

to do something that the Trump administration

40:40

is refusing to do. And that is,

40:42

in one instance, mixed among the Venezuelans

40:44

who were sent to El Salvador, was

40:46

a Salvadoran man who was

40:48

married to a U .S.

40:50

citizen and has a U .S.

40:52

citizen child who lived in

40:54

the suburbs of Maryland and

40:56

had a judge's order issued

40:58

in 2019 forbidding his deportation

41:00

to El Salvador because of

41:02

safety risks. And

41:04

he, by accident, was

41:07

arrested and deported to El Salvador

41:09

and was put on one of these

41:11

planes with the other Venezuelans. The

41:13

U .S. government, the Trump administration, in

41:15

a court filing acknowledged explicitly that it

41:17

had made a, quote, administrative error

41:19

in sending this man to El Salvador.

41:21

But then it went on to

41:23

say, look, we're sorry we made

41:25

this administrative error, but there's nothing we can do

41:27

about it. And that's where they left it. And

41:29

now the Supreme Court is saying, no, the Trump

41:31

administration has to bring this man back. And

41:34

the Trump administration right now is

41:36

refusing. So we are in,

41:38

to my mind, a full -blown

41:40

crisis. And it's all at the center

41:42

of this administration's immigration agenda. Just in

41:44

case people want to further research that

41:46

case, this is the story of Kilmar

41:48

Abrego Garcia. Is that right that you

41:50

just referred to? That's correct. That's

41:52

correct. Jonathan, everyone would acknowledge that

41:54

the criminal justice system in this country

41:56

is flawed. It's probably flawed everywhere. But

41:59

in this country, if you're going to go

42:01

to prison, you've had a trial. And

42:03

once you have a sentence, there's

42:05

an end date. Even if that

42:07

end date stipulates that it's the

42:09

end of your natural life, what

42:11

do we know about when people

42:13

jailed in El Salvador because they

42:15

were accused in the United States

42:17

of being criminal undocumented immigrants? When

42:19

can they get out of prison

42:21

in El Salvador? I

42:24

don't know, and I don't know

42:26

that anyone does, which

42:28

should terrify people. And it should

42:30

terrify people especially because Trump

42:32

repeated a line that he's used

42:34

before, which is that he's

42:36

willing to send American citizens to

42:38

this facility in El Salvador.

42:40

He says he would do it

42:43

only to violent criminals. But

42:45

again, what does that mean? If

42:47

there's no judicial oversight, if there's no

42:49

tube process, if the administration

42:51

is willing to say as it is

42:53

now explicitly said that, oh, even when

42:55

we make a mistake, there's nothing we

42:57

can do about it. Tough luck. It

43:00

should terrify people, the open -endedness

43:02

of this. But we don't have

43:05

any basic answers to any of

43:07

your very reasonable and straightforward questions. Does

43:09

Congress have any power to weigh in on

43:11

how and when and whether the Alien Enemies Act

43:13

is used? I

43:16

think in terms of the legality

43:18

of the use of the Alien Enemies

43:20

Act, that's a matter for the courts.

43:22

And that will eventually get adjudicated. Congress

43:25

has other powers that it's

43:27

not really bothering to use to

43:29

try to impose some restraints

43:31

on the Trump administration. One would

43:33

be to restrict appropriations in

43:35

funding for other aspects of the

43:37

administration's immigration agenda. until some

43:39

of these issues get resolved. But

43:41

of course, that would require

43:43

a majority of Republicans to go

43:45

that far, and it would

43:47

require Democrats to overcome their fears

43:49

of talking about the immigration

43:51

issue and taking a real stand

43:53

on it. But right now,

43:55

the Trump administration is bringing a

43:57

massive budget before Congress that

43:59

would vastly expand the resources of

44:01

its immigration enforcement operations. And

44:03

so one thing that Congress could do is

44:06

it could say, hypothetically, Look, we're

44:08

not going to authorize any of

44:10

this additional money you're requesting until you.

44:12

comply with the Supreme Court order until

44:15

you give a little bit more

44:17

clarity and transparency about how you're using

44:19

the Alien Enemies Act or any

44:21

other legal regime with which you're prosecuting

44:23

your deportation campaign. But we're

44:25

not really seeing that anytime soon.

44:27

I just think the politics on

44:30

this are too tangled. And

44:32

so as far as I can tell

44:35

right now, this is a jump ball between

44:37

the president and the courts. You

44:39

note in the piece, Jonathan, some critics think

44:41

the point of all this for the Trump

44:43

administration is really just picking a fight with

44:45

the federal judiciary. Why would that be appealing

44:47

for the White House? You

44:50

know, it's interesting. In the

44:52

first Trump term, there was an

44:54

element of kind of gamesmanship

44:56

and brinksmanship from the Trump administration

44:58

with the courts. You know,

45:00

the president would sound off anytime

45:02

the federal judge issued a

45:04

nationwide injunction blocking one of his

45:06

policies. I

45:09

think at the time that always

45:11

struck people even more sort of centrist,

45:13

even right -leaning voters say, certainly members

45:15

of Congress, it struck people as

45:17

excessive, as extreme, the idea that the

45:19

administration would try to take aim

45:22

at the courts themselves. I

45:24

think one thing that's changed from

45:26

the first Trump administration to the current

45:28

one is they have very much

45:30

leaned into this approach. They think that

45:32

picking a fight with the judiciary

45:34

is a political winner for them. I

45:36

think they feel somehow that they

45:38

have a massive mandate for the president

45:40

to do whatever he wants and

45:42

that people will reward strength at all

45:44

costs. I think

45:46

it's a catastrophic mistake for

45:48

legal reasons, for moral reasons,

45:50

but also for political reasons. But

45:53

that's the fight they're waging

45:55

and it really until there's

45:57

more resistance from other

45:59

lawmakers, for example, in

46:01

Congress. And we're starting to

46:04

see more and more. I mean, as

46:06

the Trump administration gets more extreme in

46:08

its sort of taunting of the federal

46:10

judiciary, I think you're going to

46:12

increasingly see more lawmakers coming forward. But

46:15

really, right now, the resistance, the

46:17

political resistance in opposition to the

46:19

Trump administration has been pretty muted,

46:21

especially on the immigration issue. And

46:23

so I think that the calculus

46:25

seems to be inside the White

46:27

House. politically, this makes us

46:29

look strong. It shows

46:31

that we're effectively invincible because

46:34

there's really no domestic opposition,

46:36

whether it's institutional or political, to

46:38

slow us down. And

46:41

this was a big part of the

46:43

logic of the first Trump administration, the

46:46

idea that we can carry

46:48

out our agenda and the courts

46:50

will only slow us down and

46:52

the way we can charge

46:54

through any of those restraints is

46:56

essentially to keep appealing until we

46:58

get to the Supreme Court where

47:00

Trump has already now nominated three

47:03

of its members. And

47:05

the courts move slowly while some of

47:07

these issues slowly get teased out in

47:09

the courts. We can charge ahead with

47:11

our agenda. And so I think there's

47:13

a feeling that it's sort of just

47:15

easier for them politically and from a

47:17

policy perspective to just speed right through

47:19

any and all stop signs. Jonathan

47:22

Blitzer is a staff writer at

47:24

The New Yorker, which published his article,

47:26

The Makeup Artist Donald Trump Deported

47:28

Under the Alien Enemies Act. Jonathan, thank

47:30

you for sharing your reporting on

47:32

this. Thanks again for having me. THiNK

47:34

is distributed by PRX, the Public

47:36

Radio Exchange. You can find us on

47:38

Facebook, Instagram, and anywhere you get

47:40

podcasts. Again, I'm Chris Boyd. Thanks for

47:42

listening. Have a great day.